Brain
deserves his place in the Icon series by virtue
of his exalted status in the demanding ranks of solo
horn players. That said much of the material here is
of the EMI merry-go-round variety and will be over-familiar
to many. Which is not to decry its availability in this
four disc, very reasonably priced box.

The
Brain/Karajan Mozart concerto cycle has long been a staple
of the catalogues. It’s currently available in a number
of guises from EMI’s own GROC incarnation and Naxos’ restoration
to an Andromeda transfer and things in between. A live
K447 with that masterful conductor Hans Rosbaud has shown
how much more flair and immediacy the less well known
collaboration was able to generate; and this despite
the critically accepted truism that the Karajan-Brain
partnership was a Rolls Royce affair. It is of course;
it’s just that I’d prefer to have heard Brain with Rosbaud
in all four (the Second Concerto also exists).

This
box however does include Brain’s first ever recording,
of the Fourth Concerto K495 in which Laurence Turner,
the Hallé Orchestra’s leader, conducts the finale (which
was recorded first) and Malcolm Sargent – who was late – the
remainder. It preserves the sound of the Raoux French
horn that Brain was later to lay aside in favour of the
wide-bore German; the Karajan sessions were made with
a German horn. The 1946 recording of the Second Concerto
K417 with Süsskind is another example of a congenial
partnership. Brain considered that some of his very finest
playing on disc came in the 1947 recording of Strauss’s
First Concerto with Galliera. Certainly the ebullience,
bravura, legato and tonal beauty are remarkable examples
of his art and this is an absolutely essential Brain
artefact. The rest of the first disc includes the Beethoven
sonata recording with Denis Matthews – splendid ensemble,
witty and wise phrasing. His Schumann with Gerald Moore
is mellifluous; the Wagner extract derives from the Instruments
of the Orchestra set presided over by Sargent.

The
second disc includes the Mozart Karajan performances
as well as the Quintet for piano and wind in E flat K452
where he’s joined by his Wind Ensemble and pianist Colin
Horsley. The better-known recording is the Gieseking-Brain-Sutcliffe-Walton-James
one from 1955 but this earlier May 1954 recording is,
if less starry, probably better balanced as an ensemble.

The
third disc gives us a parade of great performances. The
1956 recordings of both Strauss concertos with Sawallich
are here. Brain had long since shifted to the German
double horn so interest accrues from hearing the tonal
qualities of the two horns in the First Concerto; the
earlier recording with Galliera was of the unrevised
work but with Sawallich Brain of course recorded the
revised version. The composer-conducted Hindemith was
a shoe-in for this set though its origins were problematic.
Brain was to have recorded it with Klemperer in 1954
but the two men didn’t get on at all and their attempt
at a recording broke down. The Berkeley Trio is more
evidence of his exploratory attitude to contemporary
compositions and his excellence in realising them.

The
final disc gives us Eine Musikalischer Spass K522 with
Cantelli and colleagues Manoug Parikian and Neill Sanders.
As Heifetz once proved in private you have to be very
good to play this badly. The Gordon Jacob Sextet is another
example of the superior standards set by Brain’s own
Ensemble – not surprising given the names involved here;
Gareth Morris, Leonard Brain, Stephen Waters, Cecil James
and George Malcolm (on the piano). There are examples
from HMV’s History of Music in Sound album – Haydn and
Mozart’s K289 and the famous Hoffnung concert where Brain
played a hosepipe.

Stephen
Pettit, Brain’s biographer, has compiled some relevant
booklet notes. The transfers are unproblematic, the box
sturdy and the price right.

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